


grind

by aparticularbandit



Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: But it's definitely there, F/F, F/M, Gen, NOT REMOTELY, but that's not at all the main focus, ish, it is primarily him, so while i hesitate to put it in the tags it does really belong there, there's definitely aspects of roisa to it, this is an emilio piece, this is not really a roisa fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 12:12:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17560154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aparticularbandit/pseuds/aparticularbandit
Summary: emilio and rose and coffee





	grind

the first time she sleeps in his bed, he makes her coffee.  she rouses with one hand brushing grime from the corner of her right eye and doesn’t move to cover her nakedness until she shivers with the shock of cold air as she sits upright under his watchful gaze.  the coffee waits – warm, freshly ground – between them, a bowl of cubed sugar and a small pot of milk wrapped in porcelain next to it on the silver tray.  she takes the cup offered her, slender fingers embracing its heat as her long nails tap against the fine china, and he falls in love with the wrinkle of her nose as she takes the first sip.

“what blend is this?”

he remembers that she takes her drink black and bitter the same way he takes his own, and when he offers her his hand, she takes it the same way she took the cup, cold fingertips colder still in the heat of his palm.  it is wrapped in a rose-colored negligee that he shows her his catalogue of beans, more numerous than the wine he’d shown her in his cellar the night before, and how finely he grinds them to brew his own perfect cup.  he chuckles under her inquisitive gaze – his staff, he admits, could do this for them, but it has always been his personal pleasure.

she doesn’t touch his shoulder like one of the other wives might have nor does she kiss his cheek nor does she impress upon him any other action that might come across as patronizing, a little girl watching her boy with his toys.  instead she clasps both hands on her cup, blows off the thick steam, and smiles as the liquid burns her tongue.

* * *

his daughter doesn’t drink coffee the same way he does, instead choosing to doctor it with so much milk and sugar that it might as well be a coffee-flavored milkshake.  he has never made this comment, but her brother has, spitting out the single mouthful he’d taken when he’d mixed up their cups.  as much as he dislikes how much she taints her drink with other, lighter fare, he deems it far better than the years she’d spiked it with baileys, whiskey, _vodka_ while he’d been unaware.  she doesn’t have to make the comment.  they lock eyes in understanding and he never says a word.

* * *

his second wife bought him his first coffee grinder with money she earned working in his first hotel.  it found its way among the scattered parcels of mourning gifts at the funeral parlor, and it’d stuck out for not being a bouquet of roses that would decay within a month the same way the memories of his first wife would fade from his daughter’s mind.  he cannot remember his mother either, other than light and fire and the brightness of her smile as she danced arm in arm with his father, and he hopes that of everything these are the things that she will bring forth from the shadowy recesses of her mind, not the last few months of sterile institutions and dull over-medicated eyes and the moon through her hair as the breeze took her over the edge.

when he’d thanked her, she hadn’t become his wife yet but he understood the angle.  she placed his hands on the grinder in the hotel kitchen, taught him how to work her knobs, the way the pestle thrust in the mortar.  her lips left feigned chaste lipstick marks on his skin, and she chased away the ghost of the woman he loved.  their marriage was the first of a pattern, not of love but of necessity.

* * *

 

he never expected his wives to be faithful to him because he was never truly faithful to them.  even in the absence of a physical affair, he was always in the midst of an emotional one, speaking at length to the only wife who would never have needed to worry.  she appeared to him at the oddest moments – in the fog of a glass window pane, in the straight lines of his daughter’s hair falling past her shoulders, in the reflection in the curve of a single cup of coffee.  he would run his finger along the edge and act as though he didn’t see anything, then find himself in one of his many rooms alone, on his knees, fingers curled into the comforters patterned with her favorite colors, forehead resting on the bed’s edge.

once, his last wife found him.  he heard the soft shuffle of her shoes along the hotel’s carpet, and his steel eyes did not turn to meet her own.  she might have mistook his actions for the prayers of the devout if she hadn’t known better, hand brushing along the back of his suit jacket not out of comfort or familiarity but as a reminder that he was not alone.

that was the first moment he knew she’d found someone else to keep her bed warm while he was away.  the scent of cinnamon and honey lingered about her fingers, just beneath the ever-present one of strawberries and lavender.  but he didn’t begrudge her this secret.  she was young.  he didn’t marry her out of need for love.

he married her to keep the wolves away.

* * *

 

his first wife was barely twenty-five when he lost her forever.

it was shortly after the twenty-fifth year of her death that he met his last.

* * *

 

he did not place his hands on hers, but he showed her the same gentle grind that his second wife used.  his hands were firmer for a much finer result, tailored to his desires instead of hers, but hers were softer, more so even than the woman who taught him the action, leaving a much harsher grind, too bitter for his smoother sensibilities, but she drank it the same way his daughter once drank vodka, as though it were nothing but water, and she did so with a hint of a smile playing about her lips.

she must have seen the way his nose crinkled when she offered him a sip of her own, the spluttering as he forced himself to swallow it down, because she laughed, a bright, childish sound, before he had a chance to reprimand her, and he thought, for a moment, that in the same way he loved but did not love her she might love but not love him.

the woman of cinnamon and honey – and he was certain of her femininity because few men would wear that scent with the same pride he wore his spearmint, cigar, and wine – might exist in the same breadth of space he did, and so long as he was not confronted with her and with his new wife’s desperate need so blatantly that it became rude, it would be forgiven.

* * *

 

he and his first wife had no money.  together they worked to build up his hotel, and when it grew and became lucrative, they learned what it meant to have.  she crippled under the weight of it, under the burden of his less legal decisions as he realized the vast opportunities that even having a little gave to them.

he does not know how to put this into words.

* * *

 

she curls up in bed next to him and he runs fingers through her bright red curls and he shows her a cuban cigar and how their taste is so much richer than that of flimsy american cigarettes.

when they take their first vacation she hands him a goblet of wine as she strokes the white hair on his chest and he learns again how some grapes have a much more complex taste than others.

she does not take up his smoking habit the same way she took the cup of coffee but he begins to order the swiss wine for his hotels.

* * *

 

he would give anything to be having these learning experiences with his first wife but in her stead he has them with too many women whose ages remain steadily the same, always those years just after she died, always that moment in time when he learned through someone else’s experiences instead of finding his way alongside the wife who would have loved the experience of learning the same as he did, always an attempt to recapture something that he has lost forever.

as he grows older, their youth stands out more starkly in contrast.

he hears his children call them _trophy wives_ , _cotton belles_ , and the pun of the last makes him smile with fondness even as his wives, hearing it, break out in anger against them.  they marry him for money, for lifestyle.  he knows that.  they think he marries them for the use of their bodies and sometimes he fools himself into thinking that.  sometimes this is the excuse he gives the ghost of his first wife as she appears more and more frequently.

then he takes his medication and the ghost disappears and he is left with women who want nothing to do with him and he throws them aside without a second thought.  they think he has deprived them of their youth.  he thinks he has taught them what it means to grow up.

* * *

 

he makes coffee for her the first time she sleeps in his bed.

he brings it to her on a platter of pure silver.

he is barefoot in boxers of ebony and he hums to himself a tune he’s heard whistled before although he cannot place when or where.

his daughter is bleary-eyed when he sees her later that day, still humming, with her non-milkshake coffee held ice cold between bare hands.  the ice melts in the summer heat.  her eyes seem almost bloodshot but the scent of liquor is not on her.  he thinks there’s the veil of cinnamon and honey about her but she hands him a half-eaten snickerdoodle cookie in the form of an offering of appeasement for walking out so suddenly on their family dinner.

he doesn’t ask if she’s been drinking but her eyes don’t meet his.

the cookie is warm in his hands.

her sponsor is nowhere to be seen.

* * *

 

his last wife is the only one to ever step up to help her.  she is neither blatant nor vocal about this.  by then she has her own grinder and they spend their mornings in his room of beans, picking out their own preferred flavor and recommending tastes and blends to each other, then sitting to talk while they wait for their beans to produce juice.  he has learned the subtleties of her mannerisms, or thinks that he has, and knows not to look at anything other than his cup as she remarks on his daughter’s state of health.

she has not mentioned it in so many words but he has learned that this is how her own father died.

he wonders, sometimes, if she is as afraid of this as he is, if this is why she becomes the ball and chain, checking, checking, checking to make sure—

his daughter has always been blatant and vocal about when she is doing well.  her deepest hurts and regrets lie where she is silent.  she is the opposite of himself – quiet when he is well, vocal when he believes something needs to be pointed out.

whenever his wife joins his daughter for a meeting, she returns reeking of cinnamon and honey, the scent so thick he can taste it merely standing in her presence.  sometimes there are undertones of vanilla, sugar, milk, _cream_.  his wife becomes as tainted as his daughter’s coffee, more _everything else_ than herself.

they don’t fall silent during the morning grind.  he doesn’t ask because he doesn’t need the answer spoken aloud, doesn’t want to hear it.

sometimes he wonders.

sometimes he almost understands.

* * *

 

he thinks, sometimes, that there has never been a better blend of himself and his wife than his daughter.

he won’t say it, but she deserves better.

**Author's Note:**

> this is another unedited piece but it was stuck in my head and idk if it works but here it is. and i know emilio isn't a fan favorite but. idk. there's something about him that intrigues me.


End file.
